He doesn’t blink.
Doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t even breathe right.
Talon and Nathaniel rush to him, but as soon as they get close, the wraith reacts.
A shockwave of cold blasts out from Cassian. Not from him, but from her grip on him. It hits Talon first, slamming him into the far wall. He drops to one knee, groaning. Nathaniel barely stays standing, arms crossed in front of his face for protection.
I grit my teeth, taste blood in my mouth, and press one palm against the floor.
Move,I tell my body. Get up. Stand.
I reach for my power. I don’t need to control it anymore. I just want to access it. Whatever happens, happens. But please, let me help him.
It lets me rise to my feet, even though agony still spikes down my side like fire and ice at once.
The wraith sees it. Her smoky face jerks toward me.
“What are you going to do?” she taunts. “You’ve already lost.”
Fuck her.
I lift my hand and speak. Not to her, but to the bond between Cassian and me. I can feel him at the edge of my being, tangledjust beside Nathaniel and Talon. Our bond is the strongest of the three. Maybe because I saved his life. Maybe because I know more about him now—his past, his pain. Whatever the reason, I reach for it.
I do my best to let him hear me.
“Cassian, wake up,” I say. “Whatever she’s showing you, fight it.”
I know what it’s like to drown in painful memories. Sometimes I feel like I’m nothing but one long painful memory myself. There’s no light in my past. Nothing to look back on that isn’t tinged with hurt. My grandmother—gone. Her house—just a ruin now. My marriage to Mark—a ruse. A joke. No friends. No family. No purpose.
Even thinking about it feels like staring into a void that wants to swallow me whole.
So I reach in. I reach for Cassian. Not the way the wraith does. Not with violence or hunger. I don’t tear through his memories or sink my teeth into his pain. I close my eyes and justfeelhim.
Inside, he’s a storm sealed behind walls. Anger. Shame. Grief, sharp and endless. It reminds me of Nathaniel, but Cassian isn’t drowning in it. He’s holding it back. Contained. Controlled.
And deep beneath it all, hidden under layers of hardened silence, there’s something else.
Small. Warm. Faint.
A memory.
His mother’s arms around him. The smell of lavender and rosemary. Her voice humming something tuneless as she ran fingers through his hair. He must have been so young. Before the thing with his sister happened. Before all that loss.
He buried it to survive.
But it’s still there.
And when I touch it, just lightly, the wraith screams.
It’s a horrible, splitting sound that shakes the ground. She recoils, clawing herself away from him, and Cassian gasps.
He staggers forward, blinking like he’s surfacing from deep water. His dagger slips from his fingers.
His knees give out.
But I’m already there.
